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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by RICHARD FIELD on behalf of CYRIL DIX and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

By Cyril Dix
(as related to Richard Field)

My war involved me in the closest possible contact with the enemy, intercepting and eavesdropping in on the messages of Germans, Italians and Japanese.
As a radio operator working for a secret unit, my task involved sitting crouched over a wireless set listening in to morse code messages, and then passing on the information to Intelligence and sometimes to Bletchley Park for expert interpretation and code breaking where necessary .
As radio operators at the sharp end, this was a job not without its frustrations because, whatever one sent on to Bletchley Park, we were never told whether it was helpful or utterly useless.
Enigma messages were among those being intercepted, and we radio operators were always told that these were actually useless because nobody could crack them. We know differently now, but then it was important to convey the impression of them being unfathomable. The deception was just in case the Germans got wind of the code breaking successes at Bletchley Park and changed procedures.

How I joined the 'Y' Service

I was called up in July 1942 and underwent primary training at Fleet, Hampshire.
At the end of the training, I was unsure where I would be posted.
I then heard on the bush telegraph about a secret organisation, denoted by the letter Y. They were now looking for volunteers, and against the ‘old soldiers’ advice’, I volunteered.
Two days later, I set out by train on our way to the Special Operation Training Battalion at Trowbridge. On our first morning, in an introductionary talk, we were told that we were now part of an organisation known as the Y Service for intercepting enemy radio signals. Everything about it, including the fact of its existence, was secret, covered by the Official Secrets Act, and must not be disclosed to anyone including our families.
Perhaps it should be added here that although, as far as I know, this classification has never been cancelled, this was over 50 years ago, and all the activities of the Y Service, the Enigma machines, the ultra intelligence and the operations of Bletchley Park have long since been featured in several books and films, so my small involvement will not, I hope, be regarded as treason!
At Trowbridge we had to become familiar with the wireless procedures of our enemies, and in particular those of German, Italy and Japan in order to identify them and to understand their activities.
Naturally all the messages passing were in cipher, ie incomprehensible four-letter or five letter blocks, although the actual traffic on a radio network, establishing contact between stations, keeping in touch, reporting conditions, arranging transmission times and relaying messages to other stations involved a considerable amount of ‘chat’ between operators, all of which would be logged and passed to Intelligence.

Getting to 'know' the enemy

In all the German forces, the Wehrmacht, the Luftwaffe, the Navy and Police forces, all this interchange was made using procedure signals that were essentially those used by international and amateur telegraphy known as the Q-Code, with a few specifically Germany additions such as ‘fuer’ (for the attention of), KR (priority) and ‘C-barred’ for the start of message, together with the international signals for punctuation, wait, end of message, end of transmission, etc.
Having become familiar with all these, listening to the interchanges between enemy operators could be remarkably participative. Often individual operators could be identified by their Morse-key characteristics and their patience (or lack of it). It was almost as though one was sitting next to them and listening to their conversation.
After completing training, I served in various Special Wireless units in the Isle of Man and southern England, including one at the receiving end of V1 flying bombs. I then went to Castelfidardo, the principal interception unit in Italy, and after the German capitulation, volunteered to go to the Far East. However, shortly after returning to the UK for retraining, the Japanese capitulated, so I remained in England.
I was then posted to SOTB (the Special Operations Training Battalion), at Shenley, Herts, as an instructor in electricity and magnetism and radio theory. It was here that I met a certain Joan Corning, then a sergeant in the ATS. We married in April 1947 and have now enjoyed being together for almost 60 years.

FOOTNOTE:
After being demobbed, Cyril spent four years studying for degrees in mathematics and physics at London University, and then joined the research labs of the GEC. He was soon appointed Group Leader of the new Travelling Wave Group, working some of the time in laboratories in Paris, on research and development of travelling wave tubes for telecommunications, radar, radio warfare, satellite communication, TV transmitters, etc.
In 1966 he joined Varian Associates, initially in Palo Alto, California and then at Hersham, Surrey, working on a 600 MeV electron accelerator.
From here he went to the British Calibration Service as Principal Officer for radio frequency and microwave measurements; next he went to the National Physical Laboratory at Teddington, in charge of electrical measurements and standards from DC to 100 GhZ; he then became a consultant to NPL and to the governments of Hong Kong and Singapore and finally worked for the National Grid Co. in Leeds.
From 1985 until the end of the cold war, he was scientific advisor on nuclear defence to North Yorkshire County Council.

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